Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Action Video Games Improve Vision, New Research Shows

Date:

March 30, 2009

Source:

University of Rochester

Summary:

Video games that involve high levels of action, such as first-person-shooter games, increase a player's real-world vision, according to new research. The ability to perceive changes in shades of gray improves up to 58 percent.

Related Articles

The ability to discern slight differences in shades of gray has long been thought to be an attribute of the human visual system that cannot be improved. But Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, has discovered that very practiced action gamers become 58 percent better at perceiving fine differences in contrast.

"Normally, improving contrast sensitivity means getting glasses or eye surgery—somehow changing the optics of the eye," says Bavelier. "But we've found that action video games train the brain to process the existing visual information more efficiently, and the improvements last for months after game play stopped."

The finding builds on Bavelier's past work that has shown that action video games decrease visual crowding and increases visual attention. Contrast sensitivity, she says, is the primary limiting factor in how well a person can see. Bavelier says that the findings show that action video game training may be a useful complement to eye-correction techniques, since game training may teach the visual cortex to make better use of the information it receives.

To learn whether high-action games could affect contrast sensitivity, Bavelier, in collaboration with graduate student Renjie Li and colleagues Walt Makous, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, and Uri Polat, professor at the Eye Institute at Tel Aviv University, tested the contrast sensitivity function of 22 students, then divided them into two groups: One group played the action video games "Unreal Tournament 2004" and "Call of Duty 2." The second group played "The Sims 2," which is a richly visual game, but does not include the level of visual-motor coordination of the other group's games. The volunteers played 50 hours of their assigned games over the course of 9 weeks. At the end of the training, the students who played the action games showed an average 43% improvement in their ability to discern close shades of gray—close to the difference she had previously observed between game players and non-game players—whereas the Sims players showed none.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that contrast sensitivity can be improved by simple training," says Bavelier. "When people play action games, they're changing the brain's pathway responsible for visual processing. These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it, and we've seen the positive effect remains even two years after the training was over."

Bavelier says that the findings suggest that despite the many concerns about the effects of action video games and the time spent in front of a computer screen, that time may not necessarily be harmful, at least for vision.

Bavelier is now taking what she has learned with her video game research and collaborating with a consortium of researchers to look into treatments for amblyopia, a problem caused by poor transmission of the visual image to the brain.

This research was funded by the National Eye Institute and the Office of Naval Research.

More From ScienceDaily

More Computers & Math News

Featured Research

Mar. 3, 2015 — By examining the forces that the segments of mosquito legs generate against a water surface, researchers have unraveled the mechanical logic that allows the mosquitoes to walk on water, which may ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Major cities in the UK are falling behind their international counterparts in terms of their use of smart technologies, according to a new study. The research has found that smart cities in the UK, ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — To simulate chimp behavior, scientists created a computer model based on equations normally used to describe the movement of atoms and molecules in a confined space. An interdisciplinary research ... full story

Mar. 3, 2015 — Magnetic vortex structures, so-called skyrmions, could in future store and process information very efficiently. They could also be the basis for high-frequency components. For the first time, a team ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — A method for analyzing and predicting nature's dynamic and interconnected systems has improved forecasts of populations of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon, a highly prized fishery in British Columbia, ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — The odds of picking a perfect bracket for the NCAA men's basketball March Madness championship tournament are a staggering less than one in 9.2 quintillion (that's 9,223,372,036,854,775,808), ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — Scientists report that they could observe experimentally the current flow along channels at the crystal surfaces of topological insulators. The channels are less than one nanometer wide and extend ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — Organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs), which are made from carbon-containing materials, have the potential to revolutionize future display technologies, making low-power displays so thin they'll wrap ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — What if one day, your computer, TV or smart phone could process data with light waves instead of an electrical current, making those devices faster, cheaper and more sustainable through less heat and ... full story

Mar. 2, 2015 — 3-D printing could become a powerful tool in customizing interventional radiology treatments to individual patient needs, with clinicians having the ability to construct devices to a specific size ... full story

Featured Videos

Forensic Holodeck Creates 3D Crime Scenes

Reuters - Innovations Video Online (Mar. 3, 2015) — A holodeck is no longer the preserve of TV sci-fi classic Star Trek, thanks to researchers from the Institute of Forensic Medicine Zurich, who have created what they say is the first system in the world to visualise the 3D data of forensic scans. Jim Drury saw it in operation.
Video provided by Reuters

Sep. 17, 2013 — Psychologists examined whether action video game players had superior motion perception. They discovered that playing first-person action games can enhance your perception of movement – but only ... full story

Apr. 18, 2013 — After the horrific shooting sprees at Columbine High School in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007, players of violent video games, such as First Person Shooter (FPS) games, have often been accused in the ... full story

Mar. 13, 2013 — Playing video games for an hour each day can improve subsequent performance on cognitive tasks that use similar mental processes to those involved in the game, according to new ... full story

Sep. 20, 2010 — Playing a violent video game can increase aggression, and when a player keeps thinking about the game, the potential for aggression can last for as long as 24 hours, according to a new ... full story

ScienceDaily features breaking news and videos about the latest discoveries in health, technology, the environment, and more -- from major news services and leading universities, scientific journals, and research organizations.